The Space In Between Us (Bruce's Side)
by TheGDPatman
Summary: [Collaboration with MaidenOfTheWorld; This leads into the confrontation in her story between Bruce & Diana] Timeline: DCEU (post-Batman V Superman) Bruce is prepping for war, but first he must win the war within himself. Luckily, the help he needs isn't far away. [[WONDERBAT]]
1. Chapter 1

Gasps break the silence & darkness that had woven themselves around the space of Bruce's room. His bearings escaped him. Time…Space… All of this was vacant from his mind as he found himself suddenly standing in the middle of the darkness, trying to catch his breath.

He usually felt at home in darkness. It was his guise, his tool, his second skin. But in this panicked moment, he was unaware of the darkness as he was everything else. His usual precisely timed movements alluded him, and he threshed about erratically until he felt himself knock over what he hoped was a lamp. Grasping it quickly, he illuminated his surroundings as he settled himself back onto his bed. Looking around, he affirmed his location and tried to slow his excessive palpitations.

Another nightmare had forced Bruce awake. They had become increasingly vivid, and alarmingly frequent. Every night, every time he closed his eyes, he found himself drowning in an ocean of violence as it washed over scorched earth. Waves of monsters from the sky would lay waste to everything in site. The demonic swarm would give way to faces lost in Bruce's list of casualties. He was suddenly 8 years old again, helpless in an alley… He was a grown man, clutching the battered body of the youth he took in, trained, fought beside, and cared for as a son… He was an aged and hardened warrior, standing in a wrecked harbor, hearing the pained cries of a young lady over the form of her lost love, clinging to him in a final farewell. It was as if the collective horrors of the past 20 years had come to haunt him in his most vulnerable moments.

The sum total of the coming struggle, the insomnia-inducing visions, failure, regret… It hung on Bruce like an albatross. His world was now conflict… a conflict of certainty and ability. He had been so easily misled in misunderstanding and fighting Clark, all to distract him from Luthor's master stroke. This error in Bruce's clarity could have cost this world dearly, and in another way, it had. The time of diamond absolutes has passed, now there is only obscurity. The horizon was an unrecognizable milieu of alien demi-gods, immortal warriors, and otherworldly abominations. Bruce felt again as he did as a prostrate child face down in the gutter at this notion.

Bolting upright in frustration, Bruce found some clothes and started toward the door. The silence of his quarters was deafening and offered him no comfort any longer. Internal peace had been unknown to him since childhood, but now he felt his impregnable focus being betrayed in the midst of his most important undertaking to useless despair. Walking with purpose, he burst into the main sitting area of his glass house.

Alfred was seated at the table, hard pressed on whatever task he was working on using his laptop. Staring up from the screen, he cheekily acknowledged Bruce's presence "Ah, Master Wayne! I shall have to inform the coroner his services won't be required after all".

Dryly, Bruce replied to his surrogate father's ribbing "You aren't Lord of the manor quite yet."

He positioned himself across from Alfred. The butler, changing his tone to one of slight concern, fired back "When you told me a war was coming, I didn't think you meant it would be on yourself."

At this, Alfred eyed an empty decanter left carelessly out on a table in the adjoining space.

Cocking an eyebrow and manifesting a glib tone, Bruce replied "Have you ever considered that I'm testing my threshold for pain?"

Not missing a beat, Alfred retorted "Well, I just want to be sure you don't fully exhaust yourself before the actual fighting occurs."

And with this sentiment and a faded smile, Alfred pushed a full mug of extremely potent Turkish coffee in Bruce's direction.

"Here you are Master Wayne. You can't do battle without any ammunition".

Smirking, Bruce accepted the gesture from his life-long companion, and turned towards the window. Immediately, he took note of the position of the Sun. It was rapidly sinking lower, as night approached. Closing his eyes against the glare of the setting sun, Bruce silently contemplated the exchange he just shared with Alfred. His concern wasn't misplaced, as Bruce knew his internal struggle had taken an ascetic toll. His unshaven and exhausted state had to have done away with any semblance of stability Bruce might have hoped to cultivate. But, he found himself banishing such temporal things from his mind. He knew he was volatile, he knew he had become disharmonious where he had once been calm, but he knew he had to hold himself together in spite of all this. At least long enough to see that his nightmare didn't become this world's reality. At the thought of the resolute moment, he quickly turned on his heels and headed back into his room, to fulfill the promise he made to Clark to see that the world he died protecting would never fear for its own safety as long as Bruce had a breath in his body to fight for it, Even knowing he cannot win this fight alone.

Returning to his inner sanctum, Bruce turned on his TV to CNN as he opened his laptop and prepared to finalize the necessary information to begin seeking out his potential allies in the coming war. Bruce was still attempting to remain alert to any sign of the enemy's arrival, which is why he had to have a constant flow of information even while he was fully engulfed in his search. However, the news hadn't changed much since that night in Gotham Harbor. A plethora of stories of multiple origins all sounded like one fluid stream of consciousness as the headlines of the day read in a similar manner. A segment titled "A World without a Superman" was concluding, detailing a rise in terrorism and unrest. It seemed the world was intent to destroy itself before any celestial threat could assail it. The sooner he can get this team active, the better. Bruce looked up momentarily, resolving to focus more intently on his research.

A new segment began: "Hope Triumphs: Stories of Superman's heroics". Instantly, Bruce felt an icy cold sensation erupt within him. Person after person, story after story, all the words driving home the weight of what was lost in Doomsday's attack. Bruce tried hard to push forth, closing his eyes and steadying his hands, he breathed deep and intensely. The on-rush of guilt and shame was growing… He had made him bleed; he had made this man fear for his life, even if only momentarily. And without a single thought, Clark saved them all that day, and died for the very people that once cursed and harmed him. Bruce's face was contorted in a pained grimace. His teeth were bound up, and his concentration was destroyed. His ghosts now haunted him while he was awake.

Bruce opened his eyes to find a bottle in his hand. How long it had been there was a mystery to him as the seconds were now as hours in his own cell of contrition. He drank deep from it, if only to numb this pain within him for an instant. As he swallowed, he noticed an alert on his screen that linked to a news story pertaining to Capitol Hill and the restoration of what had been destroyed by Luthor in his bombing. Suddenly, Bruce's mind remembered it was his former employee Wallace Keefe that had been Luthor's triggerman in the attack. Bruce was again consumed with a feeling of failure at this recollection. He felt as though he could have done something more for the man to have kept him from his eventual fate, but instead he ended up another casualty… Just like Jason, just like Clark.

He drank deeply again.

It was in this moment that Bruce was pulled from his mental mire by the sound of a heavy door closing. Only one door in his home sounded like that.

Trying to loosen the hood of dismay around him, Bruce called out the butler's name to check on his progress in their shared mission of recruitment.

His voice broke; the libation had made his throat strident.

No answer.

He called again, slightly heated and a bit worried at the silence, verging on agitation with the tranquility; no answer. But the sounds of footsteps were near, _two sets of them_. Bruce was perplexed and alarmed at who else would be entering his home in such a way, as the cave was the best kept secret in the world and off limits to all but himself and his family.

Bruce stood and began toward the door, prepared to meet friend or interloper a like. However, what he found traveling in his direction could have floored him with a whisper. He was staring into the face of Wonder Woman herself.

"Diana?"

He hadn't seen her since the funeral. He had given her his contact information, but since that moment, she hadn't tried to reach out to him in any way. This was a blow Bruce would never admit to. He had hoped she above all else would join him in his attempts to prepare Earth for what was coming. But she was hesitant and distant from this task it seemed. Bruce had resolved to continue on regardless, but the strain was no doubt part of his recent crisis of self.

However, here and now, he was beset internally with a feeling of elation that he let slip in a manifest show of surprise. Finally, he thought hopefully, I have someone that can understand what is before this world; finally we can fight this threat!


	2. Chapter 2

The Space In Between Us (Bruce's Side; Ch.2)

Collaboration with: Maiden of the World

( _Disclaimer_ : I own none of these characters)

Footsteps were the only sound permeating the parameter of the cave now that the verbal sparring had concluded, and left both Bruce and Diana equally without remark in an intangible aura of their shared faculty's consequence.

The noise rang in Bruce's ears like the tolling of a bell, heedful and jarring. He watched as the figures of Alfred and Diana moved off into the distance of his stronghold. As soon as he saw them nearing the vehicle platform, Bruce glided across the floor quickly to a place he could alleviate the weight of the moment. Retaining his veil of stoic unflappability, dishonest though it was, was becoming unmanageable. Bruce had to steady himself, lest his present sentimentality overtake him, and any clarity to be distilled from this moment was lost. Taking his usual position at his master computer again, Bruce propped himself up across from his keyboard as he reopened the files he'd commandeered from Luthor, eyeing each momentarily. He knew after a few seconds he was hovering around the information on Diana for more than an appropriate allotment of time.

Hearing her engine come to life and her car exit the cave, he opened the file again, hoping to find something he had missed the first thousand or so times he had researched this enigmatic woman. He pulled up the closed circuit footage from an ATM machine in Paris. He replayed the footage again… and then once more. His stare met that of Diana's image. It was as if Bruce was trying to recapture the moment that had recently passed in the cave now with this reflection on the screen.

His eyes closed heavily and his head dropped back. Bruce felt a moment of self-deprecation at his inability to remain hard-pressed to his points while sharing discourse with his hopeful ally. Was his state of upheaval to blame? Perhaps it was the stakes at hand if they failed? Regardless, he shouldn't have allowed his emotions to intercede. The severity in that deliberation, alight with so much electricity, jolted Bruce out of his normal chamber of reservation and demanded honesty of him, even if in expression only and forced his transparency.

To see something all too familiar staring back at him as the specters passed before them was something more disarming than he could have ever accounted for. Even having known something of Diana beforehand, Bruce was aghast at the lasting imprint past loss from long ago had left on this immortal entity. She had more lifetimes ahead of her than he could readily fathom, and yet in a single moment, casting off her airs of sanctity, she stood before him in a heated plea for placidity. The weighted irony struck Bruce: He was a mortal man with finite time trying to attain something beyond him for the sake of the greater good, and yet the gods of his world that could level mountains and turn the tides of world spanning conflicts sought only to join the ranks of mankind in all our folly and festivity. The humanity he had glimpsed in her infinite eyes was the most sobering thing Bruce had known in recent memory.

Diana had just silently shared something with him that he hadn't experienced with almost anyone before, but its insignia was unmistakable. Few had been able to gauge the magnitude of what a crusade like that can cost a person, even one that is vastly exceptional or abnormally enhanced. This was more than feelings of failure or mere survivor's guilt; this was much deeper than that. It was the reckoning of warriors. This was the cost of battles of ideals, of oaths of surety and the indemnity owed when they are broken: the terrible realization that the safety of multitudes came at the price of companions and comrades… and sometimes, the ones you love most.

At this, Bruce's gaze turned to Jason's costume. Frozen in its petrified stance, it was to forever serve as an anchor to keep him grounded in the realities of his mission. To never allow him a moment away from the fact that he had failed his child in the worst possible way. He only ever meant to spare others the sense of loss that pushed him into his duty, but he had not calculated the level of perdition further bereavement would instill within him. The strain took him to an extreme he never returned from. It was this that made his vowed war against the dark side of this city an undertaking of absolutes.

The line between righteous and wicked was clear, and he resolved to keep one side safe at the cost of the other if need be. The apprehensions he once had to taking lives may have gone, but it made the hypocrisy of avenging death with death no easier to shake off. At the recollection of his bygone scruples, Bruce swayed with a violent tremor. He owed this world for allowing the dark to consume him too fully and remake him into something he had never intended. He could only hope now that in some upcoming act he may redeem himself… For his sake, for the future's sake, for the world's sake, it must be so…

The sound of a voice very near to him jostled Bruce back to the material plane, as he heard Alfred address him in a slow approach from behind the high back of his computer chair "Well, I see you've still maintained your capacity to inspire others to your causes Master Wayne..." Bruce hadn't fully joined the moment yet, the best he could manage in the way of a response was to cock an eyebrow and release a low, building growl in Alfred's direction.

Undeterred, Alfred carried on "One would imagine you'd have learned to play well with others by now." Looking up Bruce coldly replied "I stated my position, and the facts, very clearly. I only hope she understands our predicament a little better now." Scoffing and un-assailed, Alfred bluntly grilled his charge further "It seems she understands a great many things better than you credit her for, Master Bruce…" It never ceased to amaze Bruce how his surrogate father could get to the heart of the matter so readily.

Bruce thought how best to respond before settling on a candid reply, "You saw it too. She knows the costs as well as I. We want peace, we must prepare for war. No one's way of life will be safe if I can't stop these…things… I've seen coming."

In full solemnity, Alfred countered "Quite correct Master Bruce, but it isn't me you need to convince. I'm always here to take on the next battle with you, but I'm of no use to you against things wrought from nightmares. We both know you need these people at your side if this world has any hope of surviving."

After a microsecond's pause, Alfred presented Bruce with a revelation "You would do well to listen to Miss Prince." At this, Bruce focused more intently on his oldest ally "I heard every word she said Alfred…"

Moving with purpose, Bruce stood up and crossed his arms over his chest. He paced and looked down toward the floor in a slow nod, "She's right, Alfred. I know that" Alfred was slightly intrigued at this uncharacteristic turn in his charge. He listened intently as Bruce continued:

"I've never had to ask anyone for help; it always seemed to find me. My allies in the past were always eager to join the fight, no questions asked. I'm honestly not sure how to make a plea to strangers with a dubious stake in a world that would just as easily praise them in moments of necessity as it would reject them in times of panic, but she has definitely made something apparent to me: If they have any tie to this world, a community they care for, anyone they want to keep safe, then they can avoid feeling the loss we both recognized in each other just now."

Bruce continued "And I can promise not carrying that around with you every day is reason and reward enough to fight for."

Alfred blinked rapidly at Bruce, left silent at Bruce's disclosure. Bruce's gaze collapsed, averting back to her image on his computer screen and his mind returning to that heated moment.

Alfred, bringing Bruce back to the present, responded hopefully "Well then Master Wayne, I see all my time spent with you has helped to sharpen _my_ powers of deduction and I can safely assume you and Miss Prince are nearer to being on the same page?"

Pausing for an instant, Bruce found the appropriate brevity "I hope so…"

Breaking the awkward silence that followed, Alfred asked "She's really quite something to behold isn't she?"

At this, Bruce stared off into the space once occupied by Diana's Mercedes and replied "I don't think I've ever known a woman like her…"


End file.
